The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Social networks and other location-based services have allowed users to broadcast their locations to other users of the network, contacts, such that they could find their friends, groups of similarly-interested people, or for other purposes. However, by broadcasting a user's precise location, a user surrenders any privacy or anonymity that they might have had in a public place or within a crowd. This is potentially embarrassing or dangerous to the user as it may alert people with ill intentions of their location and, by inference, potential vulnerabilities or other information that the user would prefer to keep secret.
The system of commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 9,485,617 to Tasdemiroglu (“the '617 Patent”) provides a solution to some of the problems of prior location-based user systems. The system of the '617 Patent provides a way for users to find similarly-interested people while maintaining a level of anonymity and privacy for the individual users.
However, there is still a need for a system that provides greater user privacy and anonymity protection, greater accuracy in the counting methods, and greater user customizability in the groups they seek beyond those discussed in the '617 Patent or any prior system.